June 3, 2003
SCIENCE
DESK
Examining
lyme disease
To the Editor:
Your article of May
19 about Lyme disease (“Some Fears Are Relieved as Lyme Becomes Easier
to Manage and Treat”) dealt with a study reported in The Annals of
Internal Medicine. My organization, the International Lyme and Associated
Diseases Society, believes that study is flawed. In our experience, Lyme
is often missed or misdiagnosed by physicians who don’t understand
the disease, and is not “easily managed or treated.” The study
you reported excluded patients with other, underlying health problems. In
doing so, we believe, it left out many possible Lyme infectees that should
have been counted. Also, many physicians relabel Lyme symptoms under categories
like chronic fatigue, cardiac arrhythmia, multiple sclerosis and Lou Gerhig’s
disease. To suggest that chronic lyme isn’t a problem is to reinforce
the very ignorance that allows many people to suffer symptoms from severe
joint pain to complete neurological dysfunction.
DR. NICK HARRIS
Palo Alto, Calif.
The author is treasurer
of the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society.
Published: 06/03/2003,
Late Edition—Final, Section F, Column 4, Page 4
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